The ruling DPP yesterday found a committee member in the party's Taichung County Chapter, Wang Hsien-tang (
"Wang has violated the party's anti-vote-buying principles. The DPP Central Standing Committee (CSC) has therefore decided to take disciplinary action against him. We've proposed that the party's Central Review Committee revoke his party membership next week," DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said yesterday.
Hsieh added that the party's investigation team had found evidence over the past two weeks that proved Wang had claimed to control the votes of 1,600 party members. Wang had also tried to sell those votes at a price of NT$1,000 to NT$5,000 per vote, according to DPP Taichung County Councilor Liu Kun-li (劉坤鱧), who reported the incidents to the party two weeks ago.
Hsieh yesterday further validated Liu's allegations and asked former DPP chairman Chang Chun-hung (
"It takes more courage to make an allegation than to testify as a witness. I'd like to support Liu's accusation about Wang's misconduct here because I, together with another DPP legislator, Chen Zau-nan (陳昭南), were there with him that day, witnessing everything that happened," Chang said, adding that the party had demonstrated its determination to wipe out vote-buying and corruption in elections.
Chang said he had found vote-buying in the DPP legislative primary this year to have been particularly serious, even though it had been rampant for years.
Hsieh said that there was an additional case currently under investigation.
The party yesterday also published the outcome of telephone polls involving six primary candidates in Taichung County. Last week the six candidates, worried about vote-buying, signed an agreement to cancel a vote by party members. A vote by party members is usually the second stage of party primaries and had been scheduled for April 1. In accordance with the agreement, four of the six will instead be chosen as the party's legislative candidates in Taichung County on the basis of the results of the telephone polls alone.
The agreement also involved a promise that no candidate would dispute the outcome of the election even if their poll figures were within the standard margin of error of 3 percent.
The poll results revealed the four successful candidates to be incumbent legislators Lin Feng-hsi (林豐喜) and Chiu Tai-san (邱太三), former director of the DPP's department of organizational development Kuo Chun-min (郭俊銘), and a Taichung official, Chien Chao-dong (簡肇棟). The two unsuccessful candidates were Taichung County councilors Liu Kun-li and Liu Chien-ho (劉錦和).
Chiu, Kuo and Chien are all members of the party's New Tide faction (
The party will confirm the nomination of the four candidates and that of a fifth -- a female candidate -- at the party's Central Executive Committee on April 3. It is the party's policy to nominate at least one female candidate among the five candidates for each constituency.
UPDATED (3:40pm): A suspected gas explosion at a shopping mall in Taichung this morning has killed four people and injured 20 others, as emergency responders continue to investigate. The explosion occurred on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi in Situn District (西屯) at 11:33am. One person was declared dead at the scene, while three people were declared deceased later after receiving emergency treatment. Another 20 people sustained major or minor injuries. The Taichung Fire Bureau said it received a report of the explosion at 11:33am and sent rescuers to respond. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, it said. The National Fire
ACCOUNTABILITY: The incident, which occured at a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taichung, was allegedly caused by a gas explosion on the 12th floor Shin Kong Group (新光集團) president Richard Wu (吳昕陽) yesterday said the company would take responsibility for an apparent gas explosion that resulted in four deaths and 26 injuries at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang Store in Taichung yesterday. The Taichung Fire Bureau at 11:33am yesterday received a report saying that people were injured after an explosion at the department store on Section 3 of Taiwan Boulevard in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯). It sent 56 ambulances and 136 paramedics to the site, with the people injured sent to Cheng Ching Hospital’s Chung Kang Branch, Wuri Lin Shin Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital or Chung
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘LAWFUL USE’: The last time a US warship transited the Taiwan Strait was on Oct. 20 last year, and this week’s transit is the first of US President Donald Trump’s second term Two US military vessels transited the Taiwan Strait from Sunday through early yesterday, the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement, the first such mission since US President Donald Trump took office last month. The two vessels sailed south through the Strait, the ministry said, adding that it closely monitored nearby airspace and waters at the time and observed nothing unusual. The ministry did not name the two vessels, but the US Navy identified them as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and the Pathfinder-class survey ship USNS Bowditch. The ships carried out a north-to-south transit from
RSS